Kühn Simone, Haggard Patrick, Brass Marcel
Department of Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ghent Institute for Functional and Metabolic Imaging, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000, Ghent, Belgium,
Brain Struct Funct. 2014 May;219(3):1129-38. doi: 10.1007/s00429-013-0556-0. Epub 2013 May 5.
The regulation of emotions is an integral part of our mental health. It has only recently been investigated using brain imaging techniques. In most studies, participants are instructed by a cue to inhibit a specific emotional reaction. The aim of the present study was to investigate the alternative situation where a person decides to inhibit an emotion as an act of endogenous self-control. Healthy participants viewed highly arousing pictures with negative valence. In the endogenous condition, participants could freely choose on each trial to inhibit or feel the emotions elicited by the picture. In an exogenous condition, a visual cue instructed them to either feel or inhibit the emotion elicited by the picture. Participants' subjective ratings of intensity of experienced emotion showed an interaction effect between source of control (endogenous/exogenous) and feel/inhibit based on a stronger modulation between feel and inhibition for the endogenous compared to the exogenous condition. Endogenous inhibition of emotions was associated with dorso-medial prefrontal cortex activation, whereas exogenous inhibition was found associated with lateral prefrontal cortex activation. Thus, the brain regions for both endogenous and exogenous inhibition of emotion are highly similar to those for inhibition of motor actions in Brass and Haggard (J Neurosci 27:9141-9145, 2007), Kühn et al. (Hum Brain Mapp 30:2834-2843, 2009). Functional connectivity analyses showed that dorsofrontomedial cortex exerts greater control onto pre-supplementary motor area during endogenous inhibition compared to endogenous feel. This functional dissociation between an endogenous, fronto-medial and an exogenous, fronto-lateral inhibition centre has important implications for our understanding of emotion regulation in health and psychopathology.
情绪调节是我们心理健康不可或缺的一部分。直到最近才开始使用脑成像技术对其进行研究。在大多数研究中，参与者会收到一个提示，以抑制特定的情绪反应。本研究的目的是调查另一种情况，即一个人决定作为一种内源性自我控制行为来抑制情绪。健康参与者观看具有负性效价的高唤醒图片。在内源性条件下，参与者可以在每次试验中自由选择抑制或感受图片引发的情绪。在外源性条件下，一个视觉提示指示他们感受或抑制图片引发的情绪。参与者对所体验情绪强度的主观评分显示，基于内源性条件下感受与抑制之间比外源性条件下更强的调节作用，控制源（内源性/外源性）和感受/抑制之间存在交互作用。内源性情绪抑制与背内侧前额叶皮层激活有关，而外源性抑制则与外侧前额叶皮层激活有关。因此，内源性和外源性情绪抑制的脑区与Brass和Haggard（《神经科学杂志》27:9141 - 9145, 2007）、Kühn等人（《人类大脑图谱》30:2834 - 2843, 2009）中运动动作抑制的脑区高度相似。功能连接分析表明，与内源性感受相比，在内源性抑制过程中背侧前额叶内侧皮层对辅助运动前区施加更大的控制。这种内源性的额内侧和外源性的额外侧抑制中心之间的功能分离，对于我们理解健康和精神病理学中的情绪调节具有重要意义。
